OpenAmplify founder Mark Redgrave describes the service as a 'meaning platform', using computational linguistics to convert public conversations in text across the web into a measurement tool for brands and advertisers.

Launched in 2008, OpenAmplify has 30 staff in London, Sweden and the US and is privately funded. Redgrave says 900 brands and 2,500 developers are using the service - but says all eyes are on the real prize of breaking the US market.

OpenAmplify founder and chief executive Mark Redgrave

• What's your pitch?"The internet is a great place to find information and for people to connect with each other. When people communicate online, they increasingly do so in the form of conversations across social networks like Facebook and Twitter. OpenAmplify is a piece of technology that can automatically understand these conversations – what is being discussed and how people feel about things - millions of times every day.

"OpenAmplify uses multi-patented text analysis software to 'read' and understand the meaning of every word in every sentence and paragraph that it analyses across social networks and the wider web. It understands what's being discussed, how, when, where and why - making it extremely valuable for anyone seeking to monetise, analyse or create value from online content. It understands whether a topic of discussion is positive or negative, how emotionally engaged the author is in the topic, and what the author plans or intends to do about it. And it can do that automatically, hundreds of millions of times a day."

• How do you make money?"Other companies pay to use OpenAmplify's semantic technology as an integral part of their own applications. We also sell our own OpenAmplify applications that help online publishers, social networks, ad networks and digital media agencies to create value by increasing and measuring engagement in their marketing campaigns."

• How are you surviving the downturn?"Staying lean and working damn hard – it takes twice as much effort to land the same deal today as it did two years ago. It's certainly a buyer's market."

• What's your background?"I graduated from Loughborough University with a first class degree in product design and technology, was a professional racing driver for four years, then I landed at a brand communication agency in London as an account executive. I joined advertising agency HHCL Group in the mid nineties as account manager on Tango and kicked some ass for few years! I left as account director to start my own company, and here we are."

• What makes your business unique?"The way we do our analysis. We have a completely unique way of understanding what content means, and then representing that meaning in an XML structure so people can use the data. OpenAmplify can tell you things about the meaning of content that no other technology can match. As a result, our technology provides solutions to many of the issues being faced by social networks and the wider digital media community. There are also countless other examples where OpenAmplify can be used - from monitoring and moderation of online content to issues of national security."• What has been your biggest achievement so far?"Still being here two recessions later, still alive and with technology more relevant and valuable in the market than ever."

• Who in the tech business inspires you?"Anyone who has built large and successful sales operations. Building a robust revenue machine is hard. I'm bored up with bankers telling me to 'develop more revenue' when many of them couldn't even develop a cold. I respect people who have done stuff, not just talked about it."

• What's your biggest challenge?"That's easy - people. Finding and keeping good people is the single hardest part of running a business. It's better not to hire anyone that to hire the wrong person. But the pressure to succeed means we all make crappy hires every now and again and that can hurt the business really badly."• What's the most important piece of software that you use each day?"MSN - old school! But I communicate with many of my staff in USA, Scandinavia and UK using MSN. It's immediate, and we love it."• Name your closest competitors"In the ad network and ad targeting space, Peer39. And, although we are different technologies, we find ourselves competing for budget with companies like BlueKai."

• Where do you want the company to be in five years?"Firmly established as the world's go-to-guys for semantic data – with a $75m revenue business and a total stranglehold on the US market. If we win in the US, we win."

• Sell to Google, or be bigger than Google?"We'd like to work with Google to drive huge revenues for both companies. Our minds are not on an exit right now... we are focused on growing a highly successful and highly profitable business. The rest takes care of itself."